


Taking Sides

by Kagemihari (soracia)



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Comment Fic, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-04
Updated: 2008-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soracia/pseuds/Kagemihari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was easier to pretend there was a rift if he let Kame think there was one, just a little bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Sides

**Author's Note:**

> Random [comment fic](http://darkgloom.livejournal.com/141271.html?thread=573911#t573911) inspired by watching the Real Face Film. In my world this is fluff, okay. Jin POV. Happy birthday, Jin!

It wasn't that he didn't understand the reasons, he did. Now more than ever, they were debuting and they were going to be bigger than ever - busier than ever, too - but they were going to be more visible, and all of them had to be visible. Akakame could not be allowed to outshine the rest of the group anymore, at least not together.

Jin understood all that perfectly, he just didn't like it. But it was a little easier when he could pretend that he was pissed off at Kame because of Shuji to Akira and numerous other things, it was easier to pretend there was a rift if he let Kame think there was one, just a little bit. Maybe he wasn't entirely sure in his own mind how much of it was real.

Maybe he wanted it to be real because that was just so much easier than having to remember and pretend every minute that things weren't easy between him and Kame anymore, and he couldn't just sling an arm around his thin shoulders and grin and everything would be alright.

It wasn't alright, at all, but Jin was never entirely sure who to blame for it. Blaming Kame was easy, maybe the easiest, but he knew it wasn't right.

Still, still. There was something nobody could deny, something always there, however quiescent. He could feel it when Kame was in the room, always knew exactly where he was even if he wasn't looking. He could feel the warmth of Kame at his back as they went through the steps over and over, never touching, so clear a line between them that there might have been an invisible wall, but he could still feel Kame matching his every move whether he was looking or not.

There was something undeniably comforting about the way that Kame was always warm behind him, even if their eyes never met, even if they never spoke or seemed to take notice of each other at all, Kame was there and they were a unit, a unit within a larger unit, Akame in front like they had always been - separately together, and somehow it was even more comforting to know that no one else could see it, no one else would know.

Everyone else in the world, in KAT-TUN even, might think they were completely broken up, not even friends, but Jin knew better. He liked to think that Kame did too. When Kame hovered behind him, not quite touching, he felt warm clear through and he just knew that Kame felt it too.

Whatever had been there, however broken it appeared, was whole and sound beneath the surface. It was immensely reassuring.

When the filming was finished and they went on, to the debut concert and then the tour, it was easier, so much easier to relax into the familiarity of Kame backing him up, never having to speak or touch but just knowing that Kame would be there. It was the kind of person that Kame was.

Jin might not understand him, might never understand him, but the one thing he knew about Kame was that he could be counted on. He would be there, he would work hard, and he would be the one that maybe cared more about the group as a group than anyone else.

And when the yakarashi fans made themselves even more annoying, almost made Kame cry, it was the group that was going to be there for him, Jin was going to be there for him, because really that could not be allowed. Jin was the only person who was allowed to tell Kame to go die, and that was only because he would never mean it, and he was sure somehow that Kame knew he never meant it.

No matter how angry and frustrated he was he would never mean it.

The hardest part was realising that Kame didn't always take these things for granted, the things that Jin believed about them and their unbreakable whatever it was that lay beneath everything else.

Kame didn't, because Jin had let him believe that at least some of it was real, and maybe some of it had been real, but Jin had never meant to leave him that alone. So alone that it seemed like he barely expected the others to step up in his defense, to circle around him when the insults and the threats beat at him and broke him down night after night after night.

Jin wasn't stupid, he might be an idiot but he wasn't stupid, and he knew some of the worst fans were his own. Maybe he didn't feel ashamed on their behalf - it was none of his doing - but he did know that he had to show Kame in a real, concrete way whose side he was on.

Every time Kame made a mistake he apologized profusely, and Jin was sick of hearing it after just a few concerts. Kame shouldn't be like that, shaken and uncertain and insecure. Kame should be arrogant and invincible and confident because no matter what, he was the one that tried the hardest and cared the most and he wanted, strived for, determined to gain the perfection that the rest of them only aimed at.

He paid more attention to Kame at the next few concerts than perhaps he ever had, which was saying something, and when Kame messed up his lyrics, Jin echoed him word for word, making the same mistake and not caring, not giving a damn so long as Kame understood.

Koki didn't understand, asked him why, why did you both sing it wrong?

I'm on Kame's side, Jin told him, just in case it wasn't clear enough to Kame and the rest of the freaking world. Maybe he hadn't always been, but tonight, he was.

Tonight, I'm on Kame's side.

And he didn't risk, couldn't even risk looking over to make sure Kame got it, that he understood, but it was later, later in the dark as they left the stage that Kame grabbed his hand and gripped it hard, part grateful and part something else, and Jin sighed in relief.

Kame understood, and that was going to be enough. They were going to make it, and someday when KAT-TUN had made it too, they were going to be big enough and visible enough that it wouldn't matter, and Akakame were going to be back too - back for all the world to see.

Someday. Jin believed in someday. Kame was never going to let them fuck this up. Someday there was going to be a day when him and Kame just being...Akame, friends and whatever else they wanted to be, was going to be okay.

Whatever else he believed in, whatever else was true, he believed in Kame. And that underneath it all, whatever they had, it was never broken. Not even a little.

Someday, Kame was going to believe it too. Jin was going to make sure of it.


End file.
